Another Explanation, No Aliens Required
For a couple of years I have been arguing that if Fast Radio Bursts are associated with stellar-mass black holes, then the identity of the enigmatic dark matter will have been revealed. On January 10th the premier scientific journal Nature published a paper presenting strong evidence that FRBs are associated with stellar-mass ultracompacts, with black holes being a prime suspect, although neutron stars are the more conservative choice. Both, however, are stellar-mass ultracompact objects. Here is the paper:
Stellar-mass primordial black holes, of the Kerr-Newman class, could constitute the sources of the estimated 6,000/day Fast Radio Bursts that have been discovered/inferred in the last few years by several astrophysical research groups (Science News, Aug. 9, 2014 issue; and many papers subsequently posted to the arxiv preprint repository).
PBHs would also constitute a viable candidate population for the 100,000,000,000 MACHOs that have been discovered through microlensing research, and for the galactic dark matter that has remained unidentified for over 35 years.
So let’s summarize the evidence:
1. Microlensing research implies a very large population of BHs.
2. Gamma-Ray Burst research implies large populations of BHs.
3. LIGO/VIRGO gravitational wave events imply unexpectedly large populations of BHs.
4. Fast Radio Burst research now hints at extremely large populations of ultracompact objects: BHs or NSs.
5. Correlations between the X-ray and IR backgrounds suggest the dark matter is composed of stellar-mass BHs.
Maybe we are not quite ready to shut down the heroic WIMP searches yet, but they and other searches for exotic particles have come up empty for 40 years. I think we are rapidly approaching a convincing answer to a question that has plagued us for decades: the dark matter is probably composed of stellar-mass black holes, and they are as fundamental as any object in nature.
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